Ex-Chaparral star hopes to capture crown with Hokies

Steve Guiremand

Monday, Jan. 3, 2000 | 10:06 a.m.

NEW ORLEANS -- Daniel Nihipali already has his plane ticket to Las Vegas.

"January 6, I'm flying there from Raleigh (N.C.)," he says. "I'm looking forward to going home and seeing my family."

And the 6-4, 318-pound offensive guard from Chaparral High School would like nothing better than to take home a national championship ring with him.

To do that, Nihipali's Virginia Tech Hokies (11-0) must find a way to upset No. 1 Florida State (11-0) on Tuesday night here in the Nokia Sugar Bowl.

Nihipali, a lightly recruited 6-2, 210-pound lineman as a senior in high school back in 1993, backs up both offensive guard spots and also plays on special teams.

"He's done extremely well for us," Virginia Tech offensive line coach Bryan Stinespring said before the team's practice at Tulane University.

"He's been kind of the unsung hero of our offensive line. He spells both our left and right guards during the game. To me he's almost like a third starter. He usually plays about 25 to 35 snaps a game for us."

Nihipali, who wears uniform No. 72, also blocks on PATs and field goals.

"He anchors the inside part of our line," Stinespring said. "And that's where most of the strong pushes come from."

That Nihipali would be playing a key role in a national championship game seemed highly unlikely when he graduated from Chaparral back in 1993.

The then-undersized lineman visited just one school -- Southern Utah -- before deciding to attend Eastern Arizona JC for a year. Then he took off two years for a LDS Church Mission in Raleigh and returned two inches taller and almost 100 pounds heavier.

"They fed us real well down there," Nihipali, who bench presses 410 pounds, said with a smile.

He resumed his football career at Dixie Community College in St. George, Utah in 1997, where he was named one of the nation's Top 100 JC prospects by PrepStar Magazine.

Nihipali took recruiting trips to BYU, UNLV and Virginia Tech before deciding to head back East to play for the Hokies.

"It really came down to UNLV and Virginia Tech," he said of his recruiting decision. "I really wanted to play in front of my family, but I decided this would be a better opportunity for me."

Hard to second-guess that logic.

Nihipali's father, Paul, is a teacher at Burkhalter Middle School. And Daniel said he wouldn't mind following his father's footsteps one day.

"I'd like to go back to Vegas and teach and maybe even coach there one day," he said. "All my family and my wife's family still live there. I do miss it back there."